Why Doesn't White Adopt Black?

:wow:

Whenever I see a white couple with an Asian or Hispanic child, I can't help wondering whether adoption -- like the personal ads -- is one of the last areas of American life where naked expressions of racial preference are acceptable.

I know that sentiment seems ungenerous. Most of the children I see would have grown up in dire circumstances if they hadn't been adopted, and many will find me mean-spirited for gainsaying any child a chance at a happy and successful life.

All the same, I can't understand why so many white American couples go overseas to adopt, ignoring the plight of black children in the United States, such as the hundreds in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia awaiting adoption.

snip

Still, I can't help thinking there's something else going on when whites go overseas, and I suspect that something is race. Why else would the Latin American doctor displaying a newborn in the video that a friend described to me assure the prospective American parents that the child was "very white"?

As with most matters concerning race, it's hard to get people to talk about these things. But when I've discussed transracial adoption with white acquaintances, their explanations reveal the persistence of the racial chasm.

snip

Then there was the woman who told me how much she admired my wife and me for taking in my 14-year-old godson. As for herself, she said, "I'd rather pay later for the criminal justice and social work systems than pay personally now."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/22/AR2006122201166.html

My family members tried to adopt a precious foster child they had for 16 months. She was pulled from their home within weeks because they "wouldn't know how to deal with racial issues". They were devastated; they were good enough to get her through infant drug withdrawal and colic but i guess cause they might not be able to fix her hair, they were useless. Sore subject with our family.

Heritage/ethnicity were not on their list of determining factors ... however, ethnic/racial matches seemed to be very high on the "agency's" list of priorities.

...I am not making this up that I my grand niece was brought from DSHS after being taken from her home due to drug use and neglect. I got complaints that DSHS thought were legitimate from the father because I did not do corn rows and those pig tails, I keep her hair short and use the stuff recommended by an African-American hairdresser friend I take the baby to. Also I did supposedly not dress her right. I also got the child through colic, sickness and withdrawal as well as being HIV exposed. This is my grand niece and her mother is white like me, but since her father is black, her European family ethnic roots do not count. So instead DSHS is going to turn this child over to a known crack and meth dealer and addict and his barely over age new girlfriend who also has 2 illegitimate children because they are "better" for this baby. Yeah right. Go figure.

Cat In Seattle

also, many agencies seem too concerned with 'race-matching'. Here's a good article (and I seem to remember seeing a 60 Minutes/20-20 type program addressing this):

http://library.adoption.com/culture-and-ethnicity/the-colors-of-adoption-black-vs-white/article/1791/1.html

..especially those who work in the social work field. Many black Americans don't want black children adopted into white families.

My "source"? My only source for this is the interaction I've had with social workers for close to 20 years.

do adopt. In my 26 years of teaching I have had 3 white families that have adopted black children. Babylonsister and LA Lady gave the reasons I have heard most often when it comes to placement of children.

and I've known couples who have adopted black children in both places, whether black Americans or Asian Indians. That's just the kind of folks I tend to hang out with.

It's just sad they're a minority.

I've seen black American kids struggle with identity issues as they grow up, though, that the Indian kids don't seem to face. It seems no matter what happens to a black child, s/he will get the dirty end of the stick.

I hate that it has to be this way.

in Canada.

Look it up. It's true.

and were told they did not want white couples adopting black children due to cultural issues.

I know a lot of adoptive parents - of every shade & "race" imaginable. Especially a whole lot of people with adopted Chinese daughters. Those who "go overseas" and pay thousands and thousands of dollars to adopt - well, lets just say that *sometimes* their stories don't quite sit well with me.

While, yeah, some of them "go overseas" because they don't *qualify* - here (which is kinda scary that they don't qualify but yet can 'buy' a baby anyway. . . - not that most don't turn out to be good parents! but . . . )

People do say things like, well they're less likely to be a drug abuse or FAS baby (fetal alcohol syndrome); or my favorite - I never have to worry about the birthparents showing up. However, personally, I think it all boils down to what color the skin is for some of them.

We tried to foster in 1994 and were told they "didn't need white foster parents." WHAT? Well - they had too many black kids and not enough black foster parents, and NO, they did NOT do cross-racial placements except in extreme emergency. :eyes:

I called back in 1998 - and was told to come on down - they were in desperate need of foster families, period. Our first placement was a week old. He was with us for two years and social services STILL tried to place him somewhere else. Fortunately, we had some good witnesses and a really good judge who was able to see that tearing a child from the only home he'd ever known was just stupid.

Do we have trouble with hair and skin? Sure, but we muddle through. (Just like I do with my homemade kids!) Do I worry about trying to teach him how to be a "black man?" Sometimes. But I've been told often enough - by black men - that it's more important to teach him how to be a GOOD MAN.


For anyone interested, here's a good website: http://adoptuskids.org/


This pic was taken two years ago - my two sons.

We were a foster family (white) and took in mostly emergency cases of children under 5. There were 2 children each around 6 months old who came to stay with us (black) and in less than a year we started the process to make them part of the family, I was 16 at the time. It wasn't until just after my 22nd birthday that we completed the process and every day before then we lived in fear that someone would just come and take them away because we had no rights. Some of the social workers we dealt with thought as long as the kids were happy and healthy, that was all that mattered. Others including managers at DHS who never met the kids had serious issues with the difference in race and tried subtle threats, constant surprise inspections, and nasty confrontations to convince us to stop the process.

The relief we all felt on the day of their official adoption is impossible to convey, losing them would have broken all of us. Race was not an factor in my family's decision to adopt T. and R. neither was some concept of social justice. In a weird way it was a simple case of love at first sight, when they each first came into our home, the first time we each held them all of us just thought, "you belong here with us and we belong with you--your family".


Got a little emotional, they're heading off to college next year and I'm so damn proud of them and so damn sad/happy to see them all grown up.


edited for spelling

Exactly!

It's hard when they're all grown up, isn't it? (I have one older daughter off on her own.)

They (the boys 13 & 8) drive me CRAZY sometimes, but I can't imagine life without them!

I'm going to bawl my eyes out at their high school graduation and embarrass them in front of all their friends. :cry:

What are big sisters for, if not torturing their younger siblings? ;)


I agree that life without them would be ridiculously grey and boring, no fun at all. . .no life at all.

adopted an African American baby seven years ago. He talks about his unique and loving relationship with her on air all the time.

http://www.radiosammy.com

special needs, did and are doing a wonderful job with them. One boy has cerebal palsey. At twelve, the only intelligible words he could speak were Michael Jordon. Everything else was jibberish.

His adoptive parent worked with him and two years later he was able to repeat the entire dialogue of two plays in which he appeared as an extra.

Another special needs biracial teen was in a class in which we were discussing the racial disparity of the past. He laughed and said that his adoptive white parents told him that when he was a baby, people would walk up to them and ask, "Did you know that your baby is black?!" :eyes:

The real heros are not those who adopt across racial lines. They are the people who adopt special needs children who will probably need extra care all of their lives and give them as much independence as they can handle but always be there to catch them if they fall.

Adopting from oversees assures that the child is completely cut off from their birth family and birth culture. The child is pretty much forced to become part of the new family and the perspective parents know this.
Adopting an older foster child in the United States is a risk to parents because the child might continue to identify with their birth family and birth culture because they aren't as completely removed from it. Older foster children still need to be adopted but many Americans idea of adopting a child means that the child will soon become like a birth child and want the child to see it that way too.

children who are from different racial backgrounds. Your statements are outrageous. Anyone with first hand knowledge of people who opt to adopt children with a different racial background would know that the majority of these parents go to great effort to expose their children to their heritage.

And maybe most families really aren't that. I guess it is the issue of being part of an adoptive family first and then your birth heritage. I'll just quit now before I dig myself into a deeper hole.

Our daughters firstmom admitted to taking ecstacy and smoking pot....big red flags for some adoptive parents but not for us. While on vacation we rec'd a call, would we be interested in adopting again. We were thinking about it for sure, but it seemed a bit quick as my daughter was only 8 months old. They explained that the other waiting parents were not interested in this new baby, as the firstmom hadn't had prenatal care and the baby would be bi-racial. There's a lot more to the story, but we said yes!!

Here they are from last Christmas: